psychologies
by frays
Summary: Kitty and Ryder, the bad girl and golden boy of McKinley High have always been like fire and ice, repelling each other into distance constantly. It didn't seem likely for a psychology project forcing them into each others minds to bring them together, but it did more than either of them could imagine. (Kitty x Ryder)


**Summary: Kitty and Ryder, the bad girl and golden boy of McKinley High have always been like fire and ice, repelling each other into distance constantly. It didn't seem likely for a psychology project forcing them into each others minds to bring them together, but it did more than either of them could imagine. **

**Slight AU.**

**I do not own Glee.**

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He couldn't help but glare as the blonde girl painted a fresh layer of red nail polish over her nails, ignoring completely Mr. Schuester as he spoke of some old singer who impacted a number of people Ryder knew no one in the class would pay attention to.

True, Ryder wasn't listening either; he was more focused on hating the way Kitty seemed to cross her legs in a purposeful way that exposed more of her tanned legs through the cheer uniform, something he could never wrap his dyslexic mind around the purpose of the short strips the cheerleaders tried to call a skirt.

He didn't hear Mr. Schuester call to him; he only heard the blonde girl snicker, watching as her pink-glossed lips curled upwards into a smirk as she tossed her ponytail back to look at him, asking with her eyes tauntingly as to why he was unable to answer whatever question the curly-haired teacher had uttered.

"Working on our crescendos."

"Yes, Ryder, that's something we should work on, but it doesn't answer _why _Freddie Mercury influenced so many people."

Kitty was the first to laugh, the trilling's of laughter from the rest of the choir slowly following hers. She smirked again as though she was the one who had made the joke and re-crossed her legs, again showing the skin of her legs much more than the brunette girl besides her was showing.

Ryder's eyes drifted over to Marley's, watching with a twist of jealousy as Jake wrapped an arm around her, meeting eyes with the dyslexic boys in a hard look that told him to back off, causing Ryder's head to snap quickly away and down to the sheet music he had been passed by Tina, catching eyes with her and seeing her wink at him. He looked back down to his sheet music, the stares in the room and the multiple fixations confusing him to the point where he would rather not look to the singers in the room.

Mr. Schuester continued speaking of Freddie Mercury, not noticing the blonde girl in the front row painting her nails or the golden boy in the back row fixating with a too-obvious fake concentration on his sheet music.

The both of them seemed to be grateful when the bell signaled their leave, standing quickly, slinging their bags over their shoulders in unison and exiting.

They were going to the same class, but they were walking at fast and slow paces to make sure they wouldn't be expected to walk together from the spill of Glee students exiting the classroom with excited faces.

Ryder hated psychology; Kitty loved it. She found it always exciting to be able to better read a person through their eyes, peering at and through them and learning about them and how to manipulate even without a single word passing their lips.

It helped her maintain the reputation of a manipulative bitch she so yearned for, always knowing it was easier to be feared and stand above a crowd rather than be lost inside of it.

She craved attention; she needed the eyes on her.

Even as she slipped into her seat, she walked with the straight back and graceful poise of a dancers, letting her short skirt sway as she walked, not caring that winter was nearing and it was one of the colder days of the year, and a bad day to wear the short skirt without her red sweatpants underneath it as the trend Brittany S. Pierce had begun at the school for the cheerleaders—while she admired the graduate, she tried to walk her own path save following the footsteps of Quinn Fabray.

Quinn had always been the highest note of perfection, and Kitty was jealous.

She noticed the glare through Ryder's eyes and grinned at him mockingly, moving her legs to show more of her tanned thigh, something that made the brunette boy look away quickly and go finally to his seat, the assigned one directly behind the Wilde girl.

She swung her hair in a way that would make the natural light-blonde locks fall over his paper, the hair a bit too wavy for her taste due to her lack of straightening it.

Ryder thought the mean girls hair looked better without the use of the straightening irons and then curling irons, but he kept the observation to himself as he looked towards their timid psychology teacher, the OCD woman now brushing her red hair behind her ear and locking it with a pin.

Emma Pillsbury was a nice woman, but not the greatest psychology teacher—Ryder and Kitty both were fairly sure she was moved to the department simply because there wasn't too much need for a guidance counselor during school hours, and the principal believed that she would bid well with the psychology elective no other teacher seemed interested in taking.

She was always kind, but she didn't quite notice how to calm down her students, and didn't know how to force Bobby Surette away from sitting on Kitty's desk, flirting with the cheerleader and trying a bit too hard to make the hot girl laugh. Ryder only rolled his eyes at the wrestler and tried to tune out the blondes talking, a bit hard when he noticed Kitty's light giggle, so much more pure than anything she had ever said to Ryder.

"Kid—students, please calm down. Go back to your seats." The invitation went unheeded by Bobby, bringing Ryder's attention back when he lifted his hand to play with Kitty's naturally wavy hair, lifting a lock of the pure blonde and pretending to inspect it.

The boy in the back of them couldn't help but notice how the upper portion of Kitty's hair was a light blonde bleached by the sun, and below that was a beachier blonde, still light but not as light as the top streaks of hair.

"I think she wants you to sit down." Ryder said coldly, looking from the redheaded teacher still trying to calm the reckless class down to the dirty blonde boy, he now looking angry.

"You going to do something about it?" Bobby laughed as though he had told some hilarious joke to Ryder rather than telling him off with improper grammar. He returned to his conversation with Kitty, leaning over her.

"So, how about Friday?"

"What about it?"

"I have two tickets to BreadstiX, one with your name on it."

"I didn't know they sold tickets to restaurants."

"They do if I want them to. You coming?"

"I hate BreadstiX." The blonde girl crossed her legs again, a habit Ryder constantly noticed of hers. "I'll reconsider if you think of something creative."

"Come on, Ki—"

"I'll _think_ about it. Now, go away." She flicked her hand at him, the flash or red nail polish that matched her uniform a signal for the jock to leave, something he grudgingly did as Kitty turned back forwards, attention focused on who she secretly thought to be her favorite teacher.

"Thank you, Bobby. Now, I've arranged a partner project I thought you might like," she arranged a pile of papers as she spoke, not making eye contact with the class. "It's a semester long observation project."

"A _what_?" Kitty asked abruptly.

"An observation project. I'm breaking you off into pairs, and I'm setting you off to observe each other for the semester. You'll spend time with your partner, getting to know them, and spend three nights a week at their or your house to learn their habits, hobbies, and personality. At the end of the semester, you'll write an evaluation on your partner, and include their personality, hobbies, traits, flaws, and strengths, or whatever you find fit to describe them."

"Kitty—you and me?" Bobby called across the room, earning a grin from the blonde girl. Ryder rolled his eyes, sitting farther back in his chair as though to avoid watching the flirting teenagers.

"Your partners have already been chosen—"

"Change them." Bobby's voice rang out, evoking giggles from the room of admiring teenage girls.

"I won't do that. You don't have to listen, but I'm reading off your partners now. Keep in mind, this project is worth 75% of your grade."

Ryder sat up in his grade, trying to listen for his name as she quickly rattled off the names, sounding as though she were scared the students yelling at her or criticizing her for making the choices. The brunette boy tried to follow her, but the only name he caught was his own, the person he was supposedly partnered with lost to him.

The next thing he saw was Kitty Wilde turning and straddling her chair backwards, her full lips curling into a smirk as her blue eyes met his brown ones, the light brown looking like the fire that would be present in a tigers, closer to amber than brown.

"So, partner—my house or yours?"

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Kitty was sitting atop her blue mattress, her legs crossed as she bounced lightly on the bed, pink ear buds plugged into her ears as she listened to some indie song Ryder didn't recognize from the distance, diminishing any chances of starting a conversation with the girl he still thought to be a bitch.

He watched as she picked her phone up, sending a text to someone he couldn't see, Ryder seeing this as his chance to try and change his shirt to one of the ones he had taken to her house, only halfway through peeling off the shirt, sticking to him with sweat from football practice.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Changing shirts. Surely you've seen a guy shirtless, Bitty."

"Original." She rolled her eyes at his mention of her small height, pulling her headphones away and looking up at the brunette boy, watching as he pulled his shirt off in a display that seemed to be flexing of his impressive muscles.

"Of course, and I've seen _you_ shirtless in the disturbing half-clothed porno that Mr. Schuester tried to pass off as a calendar."

"That was a fundraiser."

"That was child porn."

Ryder chuckled softly, shaking his head in a way that made his thick brown hair fall into his amber eyes, looking over at where the cheerleader sat on her bed, seeming extremely engrossed in reading the magazine she had picked up.

"That was a fundraiser." Ryder argued more for the sake of arguing with the hot girl, clad in only a thin tank top and a tiny pair of volleyball shorts, shorts that had ridden up with the way she was sitting.

"Whatever. It's still another way for him to watch minors twerk or strip."

"Isn't twerking the point of cheerleading?"

"No. Idiot."

"Jake's the dancer—you can't expect me to know everything there is to know about ballet or jazz or creeping."

"That's a Lonely Island video. It isn't actually a style of dance."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

A spell of silence fell over the two as Ryder searched for a new shirt and Kitty leafed through the magazine, the blonde standing after a while and stretching.

"I need to practice—do you mind?"

"No, go ahead."

"By that I mean I need space."

"And by go ahead I mean I don't feel like leaving. What're you practicing? Stripping?"

"Oh, slut shaming. Haven't heard that before."

"Not what I meant."

"Then why are you interested?"

"It's better than algebra."

"Well, then, if you _must _know, I have a dance with Jake for Glee club."

"You mean you have an excuse for grinding against Jake? Congratulations."

"_No_. Unlike you, I don't spend all of my time plotting on how to break up the Puckerman and the lunch lady's daughter."

"You sure?"

"I've slept with a Puckerman before, Lynn. They're not that great; I'm not that interested."

"And you get mad at me for 'slut shaming' you?" Ryder adjusted his position in leaning against her wall, his eyes flickering over the tanned blonde, looking more to him like the stereotypical Californian girl rather than a girl from Ohio. "Show me the dance."

"It's a partner dance."

"Then I'll be your partner."

Kitty's eyes flickered over him, asking him with her eyes if he was kidding, but he only shrugged. She seemed to take it as a challenge of sorts, and she stood up to face him, smirking.

She held out her elegant hand, signaling for him to take the hand with a twirl of her wrist. He obliged, and took her tanned hand, spinning her under his arm until she was close to him, then placing a hand on her other and spinning her outwards, watching as she spun away from him lightly, winking at him as she went towards him, leading him through a more elaborate movement that involved him tucking the light girl under his arm and flipping her upside-down and around quickly, scaring him that he would drop her for a moment, she seeming like she had more faith in him than he did in himself.

After leading him through the rest of the elaborate turns, kicks, and spins, she pulled away from him, leaving him feeling a bit dazed as to what happened.

She sat atop her dresser, swinging her legs as she watched him, her ever-present smirk seeming amused with the laughing glint in her blue eyes, more clear than he had ever realized they were.

"You could use a little work, but you could be much worse."

"Are you grading me on my dancing?"

"Is that so wrong? I'm helping you improve," Kitty plucked his algebra homework from the table, her eyes flickering over the messily-written answers, surprised she could read at all the handwriting.

"Numbers two, three, seven, and nine are wrong." She told him simply, walking into her bathroom with a peppy bounce in her steps, leaving him curious as to exactly _what_ had happened, almost curious as to if it even happened, or it was his imagination that the biggest bitch of McKinley had danced with him and helped him with his homework.

He watched the door in confusion for a mere moment before shaking his head, going back to the table and trying to fix his geometry homework, trying to tone his mind away from the girl now taking a shower and to the equations on the paper.

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**How was that? The idea of the two of them being stuck together in a psychology project has been in my mind for a while now, and I wanted to see how it would look on paper. **

**I ship Kyder a bit too hard—I've always had a bad habit of shipping everything non-cannon and breaking my heard every time I read or watch a show.**

**Question Of The Day:**

**Does anyone watch Brooklyn Nine-Nine?**

**M**y** r**e**v**i**e**w **b**o**x **i**s** h**u**n**g**r**y**—**p**l**e**a**s**e **f**e**e**d **i**t**!**!**!**

—**N**a**l**a**n**d**a**


End file.
